Shed
by NovaStars42
Summary: Rose wakes up one morning on earth C and her wife is nowhere to be found. Kanaya has locked herself in the bathroom because something strange and a little scary has happened, she shed her horns. (Homestuck AU where the trolls shed their horns about every ten years after reaching adulthood)


Rose ad Kanaya are about twenty.

* * *

Rose was not an easy riser. She was still buried beneath her bed covers long after the acceptable time to sleep in had passed. She'd rolled over once at nine thirty and the next thing she knew it was nearly eleven. Rose didn't work, though, the whole thing about being a god in the new universe had its perks.

Kanaya had been gone for a long time. Rose noticed immediately when she no longer had anything to leach body heat from. That was alright. Kanaya enjoyed mornings and

Rose wasn't about to spoil it for her. Rose rolled over and closed her eyes once more, content to sleep the rest of the day away.

The house was nice and quiet. So quiet one could hear a pin drop. She was almost asleep when the ringing started.

Rose could hear her phone ringing in the other room. She had a special ring tone, one she'd bought on a whim and she knew it was her's right away.

"Kanaya, will you get my phone?" Rose groaned, turning over to lay face down into the over plush mattress.

Rose's phone continued to ring, and Rose couldn't hear any footsteps on their hardwood to indicate Kanaya had heard her.

"Kanaya!" Rose said a little louder, "will you get my phone?

Nothing still. Rose's phone silenced as the call went to voice mail, but it started up again moments later. Scowling deeply, tired and angry, Rose threw back the covers and stomped into the kitchen to her phone. She didn't even care to see who it was, whoever it was wasn't going to like what she had to say. She slid right to accept the call.

"Hello?" She snapped.

"Hey, sorry to wake you sleeping beauty," Dave's voice flooded through the speaker, "but is your troll in full operating order today?"

"You called me for this?" Rose demanded, "this isn't a funny joke you insufferable prick. Are you going to ask me if my refrigerator is running next?"

"I'm not joking, Lalonde. Karkat is acting super weird. I found him with a snap back on this morning and he won't take it off. He was literally about to bite my head off when I asked about it," Dave replied. That was his fake calm voice, the one he used when he was still trying to act cool but he was freaking the fuck out internally. Rose recognized it immediately from years and years together.

"I haven't seen Kanaya this morning, not yet," Rose replied. With her cell phone in her hand, Rose walked through the kitchen and into the living room. The coffee pot was off and so was the TV. If Kanaya hadn't come out here and she wasn't in bed, where could she be? Her shoes were still by the front door, all six pair of them.

"Well do you think that you could find her and call me back?" Dave requested.

"Yes, I will as soon as I find her," Rose assured.

"Right, thanks, talk to you later."

"Bye," Rose bid, and ended the call. She tucked her phone into the pocket of her pajama pants and ventured back to the bedroom.

The room was exactly how she'd left it. The bed's white sheet was exposed, the multi-colored blankets were strewn across the mattress and the ruffled white comforter was wadded up on the floor. A pair of windows flanked the bed, and the curtains had not been pulled back on either side. The dresser drawers were still pushed in and the closet door was still shut.

Rose's bedroom at home was a mess, but Kanaya kept the one they shared fairly clean. Rose's clothes had usually been thrown on the floor, but a Kanaya insisted they use a laundry hamper. Rose rummaged around in it, but Kanaya's night gown wasn't inside.

She'd gotten out of bed, but she hadn't gotten dressed. She hadn't gone into the living room, where had she gone? Rose felt a little like Jane, sleuthing around the house for clues.

Rose ventured back out if the bedroom and checked the ranch house's spare bedroom. They used it for a craft room. This room was usually messy, but Rose could see nothing had been disturbed since she was in the room last night. There was only one place left to look, the bathroom at the end of the hall. Rose noticed the door was shut immediately.

"Kanaya, Darling, are you in there?" Rose called, knocking on the door.

Something moved inside, but there was no verbal reply.

"Kanaya? Are you alright?" Rose tried again.

"Go away," came her wife's mournful voice. Something was seriously wrong. She sounded like she'd been crying.

"We both know I'm not going to go away. What's wrong?" Rose asked. She tried the doorknob only to find it locked.

"Please, Rose," Kanaya pleaded. She sniffed twice and hiccuped. She was probably sitting on the floor, folded in on herself with her knees up to her chest. Rose felt so badly for her, and she wanted desperately to be there to comfort her.

Rose stood her ground. She didn't move, but she didn't speak either.

Eventually, the lock on the door clicked, but it didn't open. Rose gave her a moment to compose herself and the twisted the knob.

Kanaya was leaning against the vanity, a gray knuckled grip on the sink. Her nightgown was wrinkled where she'd wrung it between her hands. Her expression was woeful, with tear tracks on her cheeks. Her hair hadn't been brushed, it was still flat on the side she'd slept on.

"Sweetheart, what's-" Rose stopped mid-sentence after realizing what was wrong.

Kanaya was missing something from the crown of her head. Both of her candy corn colored horns were gone. There was no blood. They'd just fallen completely off. Rose could see them sitting behind her wife on the vanity.

"They just fell off, Rose. I got up this morning and one was on the pillow. I came in here and the other one came off in my hand," the jade blood explained.

"Come here, love, it'll be alright," Rose went to her, pulling her wife into her arms. Kanaya buried her face into Rose's neck, wrapping her arms around her middle and squeezing tight. She was crying again, thin jade tears crawled down Rose's shoulder where they soaked into her shirt.

"I googled it," Kanaya gasped, "and they'll grow back, but I'm just so upset!"

Rose kissed her temple and rubbed her back, rocking them gently. Thank god for google, Rose thought. Fast forwarding five thousand years had been a genius idea. There were trolls populating new earth that had already gone through this.

"It's just hormones, they must have fluctuated and it made- it made," Kanaya tried to continue, but she wasn't able. Her exposed skin lit up like a crystal chandelier and faltered with every hiccup.

"It's alright, shhh, shhh, I've got you," Rose cooed, imitation something like what a moirail might do. Just because she was Kanaya's red didn't mean Kanaya wasn't Rose's everything.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think Karkat lost his last night too. That was Dave on the phone," Rose offered.

"It doesn't!" Kanaya was almost hysterical. She pulled Rose tighter to her, and Rose squeezed harder in return.

"It's alright to cry, Darling, it's a perfectly understandable thing to be upset about." If Rose knew anything about psychology she knew validation did wonder for comfort. Kanaya was probably taken off guard by all of this, it probably scared her. Her wife also liked to keep up her appearances and she probably felt a little insecure as well.

"Could I get you anything? A drink maybe? Oh, or, I could make you breakfast?"

Kanaya gasped a couple more times and moved just enough so she could wipe her eyes. She exhaled once, long and ragged and pulled away to look Rose in the face. Her mouth quivered. Rose wiped away a stray tear with her thumb and smiled.

"Would you make me an omelet?" Kanaya asked quietly.

"I would love to," Rose agreed and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

"I need to um, get dressed I think," Kanaya mumbled, and the glow flicked off just as soon as she realized it was on.

"You get dressed, I'll make food," Rose confirmed and left her wife for the kitchen. She hauled a frying pan from the cupboard and pulled the eggs out of the refrigerator. Just egg made for a pretty gross omelet, though, so she also retrieved green peppers, mushrooms and a plastic bin of feta cheese.

Rose was just about to flip the omelet when Kanaya emerged from the bedroom. She had on a pair of leggings and a comfortable shirt. Kanaya pulled up a stool at the kitchen island, grabbing her phone from the charger. She seemed alright now, but Rose noticed she kept reaching up to touch her horn beds.

Rose served her wife her breakfast and poured her a glass of juice. She set to making herself some oatmeal in the microwave. When she finished, she turned around to grab a spoon and realized Kanaya hadn't touched her food. Kanaya was slumped over, propped up on her arm with her eyes glued to her phone.

"Is there something wrong?" She asked, setting her bowl down across from her.

"Hm? No, no I'm sorry," Kanaya apologized, "you were right, though. Karkat lost his horns too."

"Shed," Rose corrected.

"Right, shed. Do you suppose Terezi lost hers too?"

"You should ask her," As much as Rose wanted to continue the conversation, she was hungry. If Kanaya didn't want to eat that was fine, Rose wasn't offended. Not one bit. Okay, maybe just a little but she was going to say anything. She wasn't going to mention that her breakfast was getting cold.

This was actually more like lunch than it was breakfast, but technicalities didn't matter. Rose glanced over between bites to see her wife texting assumably Terezi. A message appeared on the screen in response but Rose couldn't read it. Kanaya took a deep breath and reached up to touch her horn beds again.

"I have an idea, stay put," Rose said finally. She got up, leaving her dumbfounded girlfriend in the kitchen.

She went to the craft room and dug out a hot glue gun. It was a fairly nice one, it heated up quick and came with a ton of extra glue sticks. Next Rose went to the bedroom and retrieved one of her old black headbands from a drawer in the closet. Finally, she went to the bathroom and grabbed both of Kanaya's shed horns from the vanity.

She paused a moment to look them over. The color had faded, but they were still red at the base that blended to yellow at the tips. They weren't brittle, though, they seemed even less pliable now. The ends had a sort of stump on them, probably made of calcium or keratin. Rose didn't linger for long. She took the supplies back to the craft and set to work. It took a lot of glue, but finally Rose got them secured.

It wasn't a very pretty job, but it worked.

"Close your eyes," Rose instructed, returning to the kitchen.

Kanaya closed her eyes as requested.

Grinning, Rose perched the headband on top of her wife's head. She got them as close as she could to the original position and blended them into her hair so it was near impossible to tell they weren't hooked on. Rose pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the camera app, and pressed the icon to turn on the front camera.

"You can look," she said, presenting her phone to Kanaya. The jade blood took one look and tears welled in her eyes.

"Oh, Rose," she gasped.

"I thought it might make you more comfortable, you know, just to hold you over until the new ones grow in," Rose replied. She grinned wider. This was serious, but she couldn't make her expression conform.

Kanaya jumped up, leaping into Rose's arms and nearly knocking her off her feet. Kanaya squeezed her into a tight hug, peppering her face with kisses. "Thank you. You are so very thoughtful, I love you, thank you."

Rose held her, nuzzling her nose into her wife's hairline and kissing her jaw and inhaling the familiar smell of the shampoo they shared. "Anything for you."


End file.
